Room service indicator



Sept. 8, 1959 D. R. SUKUL 2,902,734

ROOM SERVICE INDICATOR Filed Aug; 20, 1956 INVENTOR. DE V4 19.4 M su/(uL ATTORNEY United States Patent ROOM SERVICE INDICATOR Deva Ram Sukul, Santa Barbara, Calif.

Application August 20, 1956, Serial No. 604,938

1 Claim. (Cl. 40-61) My invention relates to indicators disposed on doors of hotel rooms and similar accommodations, and has particular reference to a manually rotatable room service indicator of improved construction and convenience.

Room service indicators are a practical necessity in hotels and similar living accommodations where room service is provided. Frequently the guests are interrupted in their sleep by the service personnel attempting to ascertain whether the occupant has departed so that beds may be made up and rooms cleaned. Also, guests have returned to their rooms to find that the necessary service has not been completed because of the uncertainty of service personnel whether or not the occupant had departed.

Various devices have been used to attempt to solve this room service problem; dials of various types have been used together with a central message center and checking controls. The use of the cardboard sign Do Not Disturb hung over the door knob is mute testimony of the failure of all such systems and devices.

I have discovered that the failure to solve this room service problem has been caused primarily by a lack of a dependable mechanical indicator. Such an indicator must be simple to install, reliable in operation and possessing great ruggedness and long life. Also the indicator must have indicia means that can be changed to accommodate changing hotel operations, or to replace with indicia in a different language for foreign guests.

I have devised a mechanical room service indicator which meets these necessities and requirements. A small size bore through the room door is all that is required to accommodate my indicator. The mechanism is simply mounted by securing two dished cover plates to the door around the door bore. The completed device is simply operated on the inside by a knob, causing the appropriate message to appear on the outside of the door for the information of service personnel.

It is a general object of my invention to provide a dial indicator for hotel doors that is reliable in operation and simply constructed.

Another object is to provide a room service indicator operable from the inside of the door that shows the exact message that appears on the outside of the door.

A further object is to provide a dial type indicator for room service mountable over a bore in a door wherein the shaft is supported independently of the door bore.

Still another object is to provide an indicator for room service of the dial type wherein the indicating dials may be readily changed to accommodate changes in circumstances.

Other objects and advantages of my invention will be apparent in the following description and claim considered together with the accompanying drawing forming an integral part of this specification and in which:

Fig. 1 is a view in full section along a generally horizontal line of a room service indicator embodying my invention;

Fig. 2 is a front elevation View of the portion of the ice gevice of Fig. 1 that is disposed on the exterior side of the oor;

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary sectional view along the line IIIIII of Fig. 2 showing the note holder;

Fig. 4 is an elevation view of one of the indicating dials or disks of the device of Fig. 1.

Referring to the drawings, the indicator may be mounted on a door 10 having a small bore 11 therethrough. The device has as its main support two cover plates 12 and 13 which preferably are identical in shape and outhne, the plate 12 being mounted on the exterior of the door (the side facing the hallway) and the plate 13 being mounted on the interior of the door (the side facing the interior of the room). Each cover plate is provided with a central shaft aperture 14, and a window aperture 16. Each plate is secured to the door 10 in a convenient manner such as by screws 17 passing through holes in a flange on the cover plates 12 and 13.

Mounted for rotation in the bearing apertures 14 of the cover plates 12 and 13, is a shaft 18 which may be flatted, if desired, to facilitate engagement by set screws. This shaft 18 passes through the door bore 11 but does not contact it and the entire bearing support for the shaft is in the dished cover plates 12 and 13. This shaft projects outwardly of the interior cover plate 13 and has a knob 19 mounted thereon by any convenient means such as a set screw 21 which may engage the flat of shaft 18.

Mounted for rotation on the shaft 18 within each cover plate 12 and 13, which are dished for this purpose, is an indicating dial or disk 22 illustrated most fully in Fig. 4. These disks preferably are of identical structure and may have a hub section 23 elongated in the direction of the shaft, and a thin sheet 24 mounted on the hub by any suitable means such as soldering, brazing, spot welding or friction fit. A suitable fastener, such as a set screw 26, may pass radially through the hub 23 of each disk 22 to engage the shaft.

Referring particularly to Figs. 2 and 4 it will be noted that the disk 22 may be marked off in suitable sectors 27 which are of the size of the window apertures 16 in the cover plates 12 and 13. The sectors illustrated are quadrants and may bear a suitable legend or message relative to the management of the hotel or the room service. In Fig. 4 there is illustrated Please Do Not Disturb in quadrant 1, Serviced for Occupancy in quadrant 2, Maid Service Required in quadrant 3, and Guest Checking Out Today in quadrant 4. It will be appreciated that any suitable message or legend could be used. By registering the two dials 22 on the shaft 18, the identical message will appear in the window aperture of both coverplates 12 and 13, and the guest need merely read his message to determine the corresponding message appearing on the outside of the door.

A mechanism is provided to assist in disposing a disk sector squarely in the Window 16 and to hold the disk section in a selected position. This may be any suitable form of detent mechanism and there is illustrated a preferred form located in the knob 19. The knob 19 may be drilled parallel to-the shaft and a compression spring 27 is inserted therein and la plunger 28 disposed on top of the spring. The cover plate 13 has depressions formed therein corresponding in number to the sectors of the dial or disk 22. These depressions may be counterbored holes 29 as illustrated. The plunger 28 yieldingly engages the depressions 29 to hold the disk 22 in a selected position.

Illustrated especially in Fig. 3 is a cap 31 on the exterior cover plate 12. This not only hides the end of the shaft resting in bearing 14, but may be slotted on a taper 32 to retain messages that may be held by friction in the taper.

Considering now the entire assembly, the cooperation of the various parts will be apparent. The dished cover plates 12 and 13 support the entire mechanism at the bearing apertures 14. This permits easy alignment of the cover plates and once they are approximately centered on the door bore 11 the relation of the device to the door can be ignored as the mechanism is independent of special door construction, recesses and positioning. The dished cover plates 12 and 13 aflord the necessary protected space for the rotation of the disks 22. The relatively delicate printing matter in the sectors 27 is protected from scraping on the door or the cover plates by the special construction of the hub 23. This projects axially on both sides of the sheet material 24 to space it from the door and the cover plate. The flatting of the shaft 18 simplifies alignment of the printing matter on the two disks.

To assemble the mechanism to the door, one disk 22 is secured to the shaft and the shaft inserted in the door bore 11. A disk is then mounted on the protruding end on the other side of the door, leaving suflicient shaft length to engage the bearing 14. The disks are loosely spaced from the door so that they rotate freely. The cover plates 12 and 13 are next secured to the door and the knob 19 is mounted on the end protruding from the interior side of the door. The spacings of elements on the shaft are not critical as great leeway is allowed at the outer cover plate 12 (see Fig. 3) and the shaft need merely penetrate the knob 19 sufiiciently to be engaged by the set screw.

The operation of the indicator is effected from the inside of the door by manually rotating the knob 19.

The knob is rotated until the appropriate message appears at the inside window 16. This same message will appear at the exterior window 16 and advise the service personnel that the room is occupied, Please Do Not Distur or the guest may require his room to be serviced and indicates "Maid Service Required. When the room has been serviced the personnel will turn the dial to Serviced for Occupancy to advise other personnel that no further work need be done. This message may also indicate that a room is vacant for use by a new guest. When a guest intends to check out, the guest can indicate Guest Checking Out Today so that the maid may service the room for incoming guests.

The indicator is adaptable to varying circumstances, and if more message units are required this can be accommodated by providing more sectors 27 and smaller windows 16. Also, if foreign guests are common, the dial 4 inside can be replaced by a foreign language message corresponding to the English message on the outside. Alternatively, if the service personnel is foreign speaking, the reverse may apply. The device is useful in difierent countries by simply changing dials that have foreign language messages thereon.

Various modifications and changes will be apparent to those skilled in the art, and -I do not limit myself to the specific embodiment disclosed, but claim all such modifications and changes'that fall'within the true spirit and scope of the invention.

I claim:

In combination with a doorhaving a boretherethrough, a manually operable room service indicator comprising: a pair of dished cover plates disposed one on each side of the door and each having a bearing aperture and a window aperture and mounted on the door with the respective window apertures in registry and with the respective bearing apertures aligned with the door bore; a rotatable shaft of lesser diameter than the door bore mounted in the bearing apertures to extend through said door bore, with an air space between the shaft and said bore, and beyond the bearing aperture of the cover plate on the inside of the door; a pair of hubs, and ,means to secure removably said hubs on the shaft respectively Within the cover plates to position the shaft axially against withdrawal; a pair of rotatable disks 'removably mounted one on each hub and disposed one each between its hub and the corresponding dished cover plate, each disk bear ing identical indicia registered with each other and having an area size to be displayed in the respective cover plate windows; an operating knob removably secured, to the end of the shaft extending beyond its bearing aperture; and spring-actuated detent means carried by said knob for selective engagement with depressions provided in the outer surface of the corresponding dished cover plate and conforming angularly with the indicia spacing on the underlying disk, whereby a selected pair of indicia may be displayed respectively through the two windows'by correspglndingly rotating said knob to locate its detent accordm y.

References Cited in the file of this patent V UNITED STATES PATENTS 7 1,255,909 Monasch Feb. 12, 1918 1,618,921 Ford Feb. 22, 1927 1,924,479 Balch Aug. 29, 1933 2,542,675 Hoflman Feb. 20, 1951 

